Word.ws English Dictionary

dishevel

/dɪ(s)ˈʃɛvl̩/

dishevel verb: to throw into disorder; upheave.

Verb

dishevel (third-person singular simple present dishevels, present participle (US) disheveling or (UK) dishevelling, simple past and past participle (US) disheveled or (UK) dishevelled)

  1. (transitive) To throw into disorder; upheave.
    • The wind disheveled the papers on the desk.
  2. (transitive) To disarrange or loosen (hair, clothing, etc.).
    • With garments rent, and haire discheueled, / Wringing her hands, and making piteous mone;1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 12
    • Like the fair flower dishevell'd in the wind.1785, William Cowper, The Garden
    Synonyms:
    rumple, muss
  3. (intransitive) To spread out in disorder.

dishevel meaning in Tamil and Kannada

dishevel in Tamil

கலை, சிலுப்பு, சீர் குலை, அலங்கோலமாக்கு, ஒழுங்கற்றதாக்கு

dishevel in Kannada

ಕೆದರು, ನಲುಗು, ಸುಕ್ಕುಗಟ್ಟು

Examples of dishevel in a sentence

  • Dishevelled phosphorylation, subcellular localization and multimerization regulate its role in early embryogenesis .
  • Her dress was extremely shabby and her hair disheveled, but her face and figure were extraordinarily beautiful.
  • “I am not going to be particularly romantic, but rather tee-shirty, rather dishevelled,” Holm says.

All 11 example sentences with dishevel

Synonyms of dishevel

Forms of dishevel

third-person singular presentdishevels
present participle USdisheveling
present participle UKdishevelling
past participle USdisheveled
past USdisheveled
past participle UKdishevelled
past UKdishevelled

Origin of dishevel

From Old French descheveler (modern French écheveler, ultimately from Old French chevel).

Words formed from dishevel

Words that rhyme with dishevel

Questions about dishevel

What does dishevel mean?
Dishevel means to throw into disorder; upheave.
What is dishevel in Tamil?
Dishevel in Tamil is கலை, சிலுப்பு, சீர் குலை. See Dishevel meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is dishevel?
Dishevel is a verb.
How do you pronounce dishevel?
Dishevel is pronounced /dɪ(s)ˈʃɛvl̩/.
What is the past tense of dishevel?
The past tense of dishevel is disheveled.

Words near dishevel in the dictionary

  1. dishes off
  2. dishes out
  3. dishes the dirt
  4. dishes up
  5. dishesful
  6. dishevel
  7. disheveled
  8. disheveledly
  9. disheveledness
  10. disheveling
  11. dishevelled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dishevel (page history and authors); dishevel (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dishevel (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dishevel.wav.

Cite this entry: “dishevel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dishevel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.